Eight Types of Suffering

CT has a nice article entitled Reductionist Justice, in which the author discusses the error of Job’s friends, which was to reduce all suffering to God’s retributive justice for sin. As the author notes, there are at least eight types of suffering described in the Bible.

The eight types of suffering in the Bible are:

Retributive Suffering – caused by sin and disobedience to God.

Educational or Disciplinary Suffering – as in Proverbs 3:11 or Hebrews 12:5-6

2 Responses

thanks for your article……..it was exactly what i was looking for…isn't it amazing how we forget more than we know………..i used to have all this info noted on my Bible about the different kinds of suffering..thanks for having it electronically captured…peter tells us to stir up our pure minds and you have done that for me brother and I personally thank you for that
in Christ
wayne

What is the resource for these kinds of suffering:
he eight types of suffering in the Bible are:
* Retributive Suffering – caused by sin and disobedience to God.
* Educational or Disciplinary Suffering – as in Proverbs 3:11 [Open in Libronix (if available)] or Hebrews 12:5-6 [Open in Libronix (if available)]
* Vicarious Suffering – as in the case of our Lord's death on the cross
* Empathetic Suffering – where one person's grief affects many others, as Isaiah 63:9 [Open in Libronix (if available)] illustrates
* Evidential or Testimonial Suffering – as in the first two chapters of Job
* Doxological Suffering – for the glory of God, as in the man born blind in John 9
* Revelational Suffering – as in the case of the prophet Hosea's wife abandoning him
* Apocalyptic or Eschatological Suffering – that will come at the end of this age